Labour Ministry gives clean chit to Vijay Mallya’s defunct company Kingfisher Airlines
Bandaru Dattatreya-led labour ministry has given a clean chit to Vijay Mallya’s now defunct Kingfisher Airlines in the absence of any complaint available against the company. However, a squad of enforcement officers has been constituted for verifying compliance position in respect of all its employees as payment of contributions stopped after September 2015.
“There is no compliant available on record either from members/Union regarding non-payment of EPF dues by the company,” ministry said in its statement issued on Tuesday, two days after labour minister Dattatreya said he would examine all issues in this regard.
An open letter written by women employees of KFA recently alleged that the company did not pay salaries, but kept depositing PF due to fear of action from the authorities. Vijay Mallya is facing legal proceedings for allegedly defaulting on loans of over Rs 9,000 crore from various banks.
According to the ministry, the last inspection revealed that the company has paid the EPF and other dues on salary payable up to December 2012. “Kingfisher Airlines contributed to the provident fund in March 2012 for 6185 employees. The PF compliance to number of employees gradually reduced to 3339 in December 2012 and further dropped after December 2012 due to closure of their operations and remittances were made for two skeletal employees up to September 2015 and thereafter minimum administrative charges were paid,” it said.
The Director General of Civil Aviation had suspended the licence of Kingfisher Airlines in October 2012 following which its flight operations came to a halt in December 2012 after its licence was cancelled.
It has, however, issued a notice of Rs 7.6 lakh as penalty and interest for delayed payments and short remittances in certain months. This include a penalty of Rs 3.34 lakh, interest of Rs 3.55 lakh due under section 7Q for belated remittances for certain months and Rs 71,910 for short remittances.
